GOP, Berkeley-style

As I was starting up my truck to go to work this morning before 6am, I took my permanent, felt-tip black marker and crossed out the names on the Kerry-Edwards bumper sticker on the new Corolla parked behind me on the street. That felt so fucking good.

A brief TioJaime-bio, for those of you unfamiliars: Went to K-8 with SixHertz in Santa Clara, CA. Then went to high school at the all-boys school in San Jose, CA; was made vice president of the Young Republican Club. Took up engineering at UC Berkeley, home of the free speech movement and a shitty Golden Bear football team under Tom Holmoe. Was still Republican, voted for Bob Dole. Dated sexually liberated Republican from Orange County, dated prudish Catholic from Contra Costa County, voted for George W. Bush, graduated. Found work, moved to Seattle (home of the AL West cellar-dweller Mariners and Gary Locke), was laid off twice, moved back to California, eventually moved to Oakland (across the bay from NL Wild Card hopefuls SF Giants, home of AL West leading A's, and home district of Barbara Lee, who, in a wonderful display of political grandstanding and undoubtedly the first instance of using 9/11 as a political means to an end, was the lone dissenting vote in the House of Representatives opposed to giving President Bush powers to fight terrorism in the wake of the dastardly attacks).

Voted for Arnold Schwarzenegger, albeit reluctantly.

I've lived in liberal areas all my life. I went to UC Berkeley when Prop 209 was approved by an overwhelming majority of California voters. I hate hippies. I hate all that they stand for and their arrogance. I am somewhat ashamed to admit that my second favorite stripper is a hippie-type from Oregon who practices witchcraft, is mere steps away from wearing patchoulli (sp? too lazy to look it up), but interestingly enough likes meat and is somewhat of an ambitious capitalist.

I realize that this description probably confuses the F out of you right now. And for that, I wholeheartedly apologize. Suffice it to say that living in areas so influenced by hippies and political and social activism has influenced my Conservative Republicanism.

I will always be a proponent of civil disobedience in the name of the GOP. There are tons of conservatives who will get mad at protests and activists and other instigators, but they never do anything in response.

I started stealing "NO IRAQ WAR" signs in Seattle when they were the fad. They were easily modified to say "WAR ON IRAQ".

I'll tear down flyers that advertise "Jobs for the Environment!" or "Anti-War Rally!"

And even then, this is not enough in light of what I could have been and could be doing right now. I fully intended to sneak into a crowded showing of Farenheit 9/11 and release a personal alarm in the movie theater. But I missed the crowds. I wanted to throw red paint on that theater in Oakland who was putting up anti-war slogans on his marqee, but now he has something stupid about how "computer voting will destroy our constitutional democracy". Yeah, nice try dumbass. Last time I checked, we were a representative republic. Stick to playing movies and washing off red paint from your doors.

The left can blow up SUVs, disrupt economic summits, close down city streets with bicycle traffic, ruin livelihoods for hard-working Americans with their flighty social agendas... pretty much anything they want to in the name of Civil Disobedience.

The right has peaceful vigils outside of Planned Parenthood? We need to do a lot more... I suppose it's just a matter of finding time off from our jobs and responsibilities.

Or is it? It won't take you too much time to deface a bumper sticker, or steal a sign out of somebody's front lawn. It's an important message to convey, and we need to let the left know that their dirty tactics will not only not be tolerated, but matched. It won't necessarily pay even money right now, but taking donuts to win dollars is no gamble at all.

(No, I didn't mangle that cliche. "Dollars to donuts" = *laying* dollars to win donuts. Read it again.)